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'Correcting' Trenberth et al.

12 years ago
Anthony Watts

(See the note below before taking this post seriously – Anthony)

Guest essay by Steven Wilde

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Here we see the classic energy budget analysis supporting the hypothesis that the surface of the Earth is warmer than the S-B equation would predict due to 324 Wm2 of ‘Back Radiation’ from the atmosphere to the surface.

It is proposed that it is Back Radiation that lifts the surface temperature from 255K, as predicted by S-B, to the 288K actually observed because the 324 Back Radiation exceeds the surface radiation to the air of 222 Wm2 ( 390 Wm2 less 168 Wm2) by 102 Wm2. It is suggested that there is a net radiative flow from atmosphere to surface of 102 Wm2.

I now discuss an alternative possibility.

The portions I wish to focus on are:

i) 390 Wm2 Surface Radiation to atmosphere

ii) 78 Wm2 Evapo-transpiration surface to atmosphere

iii) 24 Thermals surface to atmosphere

iv) 324 Back Radiation atmosphere to surface

The budget needs to be amended as follows:

The 78 Wm2 needs to be corrected to zero because the moist adiabatic lapse rate during ascent is less than the dry lapse rate on adiabatic descent which ensures that after the first convective cycle there is as much energy back at the surface as before Evapo-transpiration began.

The 24 Wm2 for thermals needs to be corrected to zero because dry air that rises in thermals then warms back up to the original temperature on descent.

Therefore neither ii) nor iii) should be included in the radiative budget at all. They involve purely non radiative means of energy transfer and have no place in the radiative budget since, being net zero, they do not cool the surface. AGW theory and the Trenberth diagram incorrectly include them as a net surface cooling influence.

Furthermore, they cannot reduce Earth’s surface temperature below 255K because both conduction and convection are slower methods of energy transmission than radiation. To reduce the surface temperature below 255K they would have to work faster than radiation which is obviously not so.

They can only raise a surface temperature above the S-B expectation and for Earth that is 33K.

Once the first convective overturning cycle has been completed neither Thermals nor Evapo-transpiration can have any additional warming effect at the surface provided mass, gravity and insolation remain constant.

As regards iv) the correct figure for the radiative flux from atmosphere to surface should be 222 Wm2 because items ii) and iii) should not have been included.

That also leaves the surface to atmosphere radiative flux at 222 Wm2 which taken with the 168 Wm2 absorbed directly by the surface comes to the 390 Wm2 required for radiation from the surface.

The rest of the energy budget diagram appears to be correct.

So, how to decide whether my interpretation is accurate?

I think it is generally accepted that the lapse rate slope marks the points in the atmosphere where there is energy balance within molecules that are at the correct height for their temperature.

Since the lapse rate slope intersects with the surface it follows that DWIR equals UWIR for a zero net radiative balance if a molecule at the surface is at the correct temperature for its height. If it is not at the correct surface temperature it will simply move towards the correct height by virtue of density variations in the horizontal plane (convection).

Thus, 222 UWIR at the surface should equal 222 DWIR at the surface AND 222 plus 168 should add up to 390 and, of course, it does.

AGW theory erroneously assumes that Thermals and Evapo-transpiration have a net cooling effect on the surface and so they have to uplift the radiative exchange at the surface from 222 Wm2 to 324 Wm2 and additionally they assume that the extra 102 Wm2 is attributable to a net radiative flux towards the surface from the atmosphere.

The truth is that there is no net flow of radiation in any direction at the surface once the air at the surface is at its correct temperature for its height, which is 288K and not 255K. The lapse rate intersecting at the surface tells us that there can be no net radiative flux at the surface when surface temperature is at 288K.

A rise in surface temperature above the S-B prediction is inevitable for an atmosphere capable of conducting and convection because those two processes introduce a delay in the transmission of radiative energy through the system. Conduction and convection are a function of mass held within a gravity field.

Energy being used to hold up the weight of an atmosphere via conduction and convection is no longer available for radiation to space since energy cannot be in two places at once.

The greenhouse effect is therefore a product of atmospheric mass rather than radiative characteristics of constituent molecules as is clearly seen when the Trenberth diagram is corrected and the lapse rate considered.

Since one can never have more than 390 Wm2 at the surface without increasing conduction and convection via changes in mass, gravity or insolation a change in the quantity of GHGs cannot make any difference. All they can do is redistribute energy within the atmosphere.

There is a climate effect from the air circulation changes but, due to the tiny proportion of Earth’s atmospheric mass comprised of GHGs, too small to measure compared to natural variability.

What Happens When Radiative Gases Increase Or Decrease?

Applying the above correction to the Trenberth figures we can now see that 222 Wm2 radiation from the surface to the atmosphere is simply balanced by 222 Wm2 radiation from the atmosphere to the surface. That is the energy being constantly expended by the surface via conduction and convection to keep the weight of the atmosphere off the surface. We must ignore it for the purpose of energy transmission to space since the same energy cannot be in two places at once.

We then have 168 Wm2 left over at the surface which represents energy absorbed by the surface after 30 Wm2 has been reflected from the surface , 77 Wm2 has been reflected by the atmosphere and 67 Wm2 has been absorbed by the atmosphere before it reaches the surface.

That 168 Wm2 is then transferred to the atmosphere by conduction and convection leaving a total of 235 Wm2 in the atmosphere (168 plus 67).

It is that 235 Wm2 that must escape to space if radiative balance is to be maintained.

Now, remember that the lapse rate slope represents the positions in the atmosphere where molecules are at their correct temperature for their height.

At any given moment convection arranges that half the mass of the atmosphere is too warm for its height and half the mass is too cold for its height.

The reason for that is that the convective process runs out of energy to lift the atmosphere any higher against gravity when the two halves equalise.

It must follow that at any given time half of the GHGs must be too warm for their height and the other half too cold for their height.

That results in density differentials that cause the warm molecules to rise and the cold molecules to fall.

If a GHG molecule is too warm for its height then DWIR back to the surface dominates but the molecule rises away from the surface and cools until DWIR again equals UWIR.

If a GHG molecule is too cold for its height then UWIR to space dominates but the molecule then falls until DWIR again equals UWIR.

The net effect is that any potential for GHGs to warm or cool the surface is negated by the height changes relative to the slope of the adiabatic lapse rate.

Let’s now look at how that outgoing 235 Wm2 is dealt with if radiative gas concentrations change.

It is recognised that radiative gases tend to reduce the size of the Atmospheric Window (40 Wm2) so we will assume a reduction from 40 Wm2 to 35 Wm2 by way of example.

If that happens then DWIR for molecules that are too warm for their height will increase but the subsequent rise in height will cause the molecule to rise above its correct position along the lapse rate slope with UWIR to space increasing at the expense of DWIR back to the surface and rising will only stop when DWIR again equals UWIR.

Since UWIR to space increases to compensate for the shrinking of the atmospheric window (from 40 Wm2 to 35 Wm2) the figure for radiative emission from the atmosphere will increase from 165 to 170 which keeps the system in balance with 235 Wm2 still outgoing.

If the atmosphere had no radiative capability at all then radiative emission from the atmosphere would be zero but the Atmospheric Window would release 235 Wm2 from the surface.

If the atmosphere were 100% radiative then the Atmospheric Window from the surface would be zero and the atmosphere would radiate the entire 235 Wm2.

==============================================================

Note: I’m glad to see a number of people pointing out how flawed the argument is. Every once in awhile we need to take a look at the ‘Slayer’ mentality of thinking about radiative balance, just to keep sharp on the topic. At first I thought this should go straight into the hopper, and then I thought it might make some good target practice, so I published it without any caveat.

Readers did not disappoint.

Now you can watch the fun as they react over at PSI.  – Anthony

P.S. Readers might also enjoy my experiment on debunking the PSI light bulb experiment, and note the reactions in comments, entirely opposite to this one. New WUWT-TV segment: Slaying the ‘slayers’ with Watts

Update: Let me add that the author assuredly should have included a link to the underlying document, Earth’s Global Energy Budget by Kiehl and Trenberth …

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John West
April 8, 2014 9:45 am

To those who keep bringing up the lapse rate:
The characteristics of the tropospheric lapse rate are a function of being heated from below not that gravity causes the lapse rate. Notice that the stratospheric lapse rate and (if you’ll pardon the expression) the oceanic lapse rate are the opposite of the tropospheric lapse rate. Does gravity flip flop its temperature inducing features at will? Note that with each of these fluids the temperature is warmest where its closest to its primary heat source and coldest where its farthest away from its primary heat source. The temperature of all of these fluids (troposphere, stratosphere, and ocean) could be described and calculated with height or depth as the only variable, but this does not mean gravity causes the temperature to be what it is.

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Michael D Smith
April 8, 2014 9:48 am

“If a GHG molecule is too warm for its height then DWIR back to the surface dominates but the molecule rises away from the surface and cools until DWIR again equals UWIR.
If a GHG molecule is too cold for its height then UWIR to space dominates but the molecule then falls until DWIR again equals UWIR.”
More of the intelligent radiator theory. It’s amazing that individual molecules have the intellectual capacity to know which direction to throw off a photon. Or even what its current altitude is, or its thermal relationship to its surroundings, or its orientation. Do you suppose that all GHGs have GPS AND thermal sensing equipment too, WITH gyroscopes?. And where do they get their signals with which to compare and correct? And what material is used for the thrusters? Now, if you put enough of these smart molecules together, there is no telling what sort of ingenious things they could make. Do you suppose they could gang up with one another and make a climate model that works?

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Ron C.
April 8, 2014 9:48 am

Steven Mosher says:
April 8, 2014 at 8:40 am
Please resist the impulse to organize “teams,” even though that worked for the hockeystick team until recently. I have learned from all the people you listed, along with some hockeystickers. I don’t belong to a team, not much of a joiner I guess.
Another of my foibles is that when data disagrees with a theory, I tend to suspend belief in that theory until positive proof appears. That’s where I am with greenhouse gas theory.
You subscribe to the notion that CO2 raises the effective emission level, resulting in surface warming. Fine. But when the radiosonde data cannot detect that effect, I become skeptical. WUWT?

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Alec Rawls
Editor
April 8, 2014 9:50 am

The 78 Wm2 needs to be corrected to zero because the moist adiabatic lapse rate during ascent is less than the dry lapse rate on adiabatic descent which ensures that after the first convective cycle there is as much energy back at the surface as before Evapo-transpiration began.

Adiabatic lapse rates by definition do not involve energy flows. They result from a change in the FORM of energy from potential to kinetic as altitude changes.
Surely there are some second order effects of the rain cycle that transport energy from atmosphere to surface but the first order effect, the dominant energy transfer, is that heat is being removed from the surface by evaporation and released in the upper atmosphere by condensation. That energy transport cannot be ignored just because it is not via radiation!

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Duster
April 8, 2014 9:59 am

DirkH says:
April 8, 2014 at 5:46 am
***
Why? Let’s say mean free path length for an IR photon at 15 micrometer, in the CO2 absorption / re emission band is 25 m at 1 atmosphere. Meaning it gets emitted and re absorbed and re emitted multiple times on its way until it reaches either surface or open space (or a water droplet in the atmosphere, which acts as a blackbody). Each re-emission happening in a random direction.
***
I like the comment with one caveat. The length of the mean free path is directly dependent upon the direction the photon is emitted, because of the way in which mean atmospheric density varies.. Spacing between gas molecules increases as a function of altitude. The path on average is thus longest in a direction away from the planet and shortest on the path directly inward. At any elevation above the immediate surface the potential outward paths are more numerous than inward ones and the length of outward paths increases as a function of altitude. Inward paths are limited by the cone of potential paths occluded by the planet. Consequently the inward or down-welling LIR is never 50% of the reradiated IR, except locally, on dry land, where in a valley the there might be more than a 50% chance of inward movement. Therefore, with each re-emission, statistically, the photon is more likely to move way from the surface rather than toward it. With each increase in altitude that probability of an inward move diminishes. Again, the number of potential inward paths is never 50% except at the immediate surface.

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Duster
April 8, 2014 10:01 am

“… never 50% except at the immediate surface. ” Well, not unless the earth is flat.

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Amatør1
April 8, 2014 10:01 am

Anthony Watts says:
April 8, 2014 at 8:50 am
Every once in awhile we need to take a look at the ‘Slayer’ mentality of thinking about radiative balance, just to keep sharp on the topic.

Isn’t there sufficient supply of climopathology from Australia? Why ‘mentality’? What is wrong with discussing the scientific arguments? Let the chips fall where they may.

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Slartibartfast
April 8, 2014 10:03 am

Don’t forget the epic Part 2 of Slaying the Slayers, Anthony.

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Willis Eschenbach
Editor
April 8, 2014 10:09 am

Anthony Watts says:
April 8, 2014 at 8:50 am

I’m glad to see a number of people pointing out how flawed the argument is. Every once in awhile we need to take a look at the ‘Slayer’ mentality of thinking about radiative balance, just to keep sharp on the topic. At first I thought this should go straight into the hopper, and then I thought it might make some good target practice, so I published it without any caveat.
Readers did not disappoint.

Indeed, the comments are mostly to the point.
I wanted to add my three cents worth (inflation, y’know). There were a number of sins of commission and sins of omission in the head post, but this one was particularly egregious:

The budget needs to be amended as follows:
The 78 Wm2 needs to be corrected to zero because the moist adiabatic lapse rate during ascent is less than the dry lapse rate on adiabatic descent which ensures that after the first convective cycle there is as much energy back at the surface as before Evapo-transpiration began.
The 24 Wm2 for thermals needs to be corrected to zero because dry air that rises in thermals then warms back up to the original temperature on descent.

One difficulty with these claims is that the author is looking at a different thing than Kiehl/Trenberth were looking at. The K/T budget is looking at the heat transfer from the surface to the atmosphere. Steven Wilde, on the other hand, seems to be looking at heat transfer within the atmosphere.
For example, when the surface is warmer than the atmosphere, it is constantly losing energy to the atmosphere through conduction/convection. This is not affected in the slightest by the fact that Steven mentions, which is that air warms when it descends. So what? The surface will still be losing heat to the atmosphere as long as it is warmed by the sun.
The same is true about evaporation. When water on the surface evaporates, it cools the surface. Period. It doesn’t matter that “the moist adiabatic lapse rate during ascent is less than the dry lapse rate”. That’s true … but it doesn’t return energy to the surface, that would be a violation of the Second Law.
I find it quite bizarre that Steven Wilde claims that the earth’s surface doesn’t lose heat by either conduction/convection or evaporation, but purely by radiation. That flies in the face of all common sense as well as physics. That’s like claiming that humans aren’t cooled when our sweat evaporates, because of adiabatic lapse rate mumble mumble mumble …
The adiabatic lapse rate is a separate issue—the obvious reality is that both humans and the planetary surface are cooled by evaporation no matter what the lapse rate does. To claim otherwise reveals a serious, profound misunderstanding of the processes involved.
There are a host of other issues with his presentation, such as the fact that when thunderstorms move heat from the surface directly to the upper troposphere, where it is far above the majority of the greenhouse gases … but I digress …
w.

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Stephen Wilde
April 8, 2014 10:16 am

Alec Rawls said:
“the dominant energy transfer, is that heat is being removed from the surface by evaporation and released in the upper atmosphere by condensation. That energy transport cannot be ignored just because it is not via radiation!”
That is part of the adiabatic process and is covered by the radiative losses from atmosphere to space at 165 and clouds at 30. Therefore it is not being ignored.
That ‘leakage’ from within the atmosphere is constantly being replaced by incoming shortwave heating of the surface which then warms the air by conduction.
The adiabatic part comes back to KE at the surface again on descent. and it is that adiabatic part which is net zero but AGW theory has that in as a net cooling effect as well as the diabatic part.

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Stephen Wilde
April 8, 2014 10:25 am

Willis said:
“It doesn’t matter that “the moist adiabatic lapse rate during ascent is less than the dry lapse rate”. That’s true … but it doesn’t return energy to the surface, that would be a violation of the Second Law”
It doesn’t return energy to the surface. It reconverts PE to KE as it approaches the surface. No violation.
It does matter that the dry rate is greater than the moist rate because there is then more warming on the descent than there was cooling on the ascent for the same distance of travel.
In the hydro cycle it is primarily radiation from condensate that reaches space and not radiation from the bulk air mass.
“I find it quite bizarre that Steven Wilde claims that the earth’s surface doesn’t lose heat by either conduction/convection or evaporation, but purely by radiation. That flies in the face of all common sense as well as physics.”
The surface both loses and regains heat from conduction / convection. That is the point that has been missed.
First KE is taken up and converted to PE and then it is brought down and converted back to KE. The adiabatic portion is net zero because no new energy enters or leaves. There is a diabatic portion too but that is replaced by new incoming solar energy.

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dbstealey
April 8, 2014 10:30 am

Duster says:
… the inward or down-welling LIR is never 50% of the reradiated IR…
That has been my understanding for a long time now. Greenhouse gases radiate in all directions, therefore a CO2 molecule at, for example, a 20 km altitude would re-radiate an IR photon that it absorbed from the surface in all directions, therefore far less than 50% of the re-radiated photons would return to heat the earth. Most would proceed into outer space. It is only at the surface that a photon has a 50% chance of warming the planet. The rest of the photons radiate into space, cooling the planet.
That is just one of several arguments falsifying the greenhouse gas conjecture.

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Stephen Wilde
April 8, 2014 10:31 am

“The K/T budget is looking at the heat transfer from the surface to the atmosphere. Steven Wilde, on the other hand, seems to be looking at heat transfer within the atmosphere.”
K/T and I are addressing both those AND between atmosphere and space.
K/T isn’t all wrong. The division up of the different processes to attain balance is neat but the net effect of adiabatic convection is mischaracterised as a net surface cooling effect which is why you then need an extra 102 coming from back radiation to balance the books.
The diabatic part of convection is already dealt with in the outgoing 165 for atmospheric emissions and 30 for clouds so anyone referring to condensation or radiation from the atmosphere is missing the point.

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Stephen Wilde
April 8, 2014 10:38 am

Michael D Smith said:
“More of the intelligent radiator theory. It’s amazing that individual molecules have the intellectual capacity to know which direction to throw off a photon. Or even what its current altitude is, or its thermal relationship to its surroundings, or its orientation.”
Density differentials in the horizontal plane do it just fine.
Do you think the molecules in a thermal uplift make a conscious decision ?
If they are too warm for their height relative to the lapse rate slope they will rise and vice versa. Do you think radiative molecules ‘know’ when to resist ?

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commieBob
April 8, 2014 10:43 am

None of the numbers in the diagram are direct measurements. They are all based on calculations. The budget, as illustrated, is a hypotheses.
For sure, the atmosphere smooths out the extremes of temperature we would see without it. How much does it actually warm the planet? We could compare the Earth to the Moon. They are the same distance from the Sun. The Earth has an atmosphere, the Moon doesn’t.
If we dig* a few feet into the Moon at the equator, we find that it is a comfortable 23°C
<a href="http://www.lunarpedia.org/index.php?title=Lunar_Temperature"lunarpedia, mind you, at the pole that would drop to -110°C. That’s surprisingly in line with the temperature in Antarctica! record low in Antarctica (*Why dig? It creates a pretty good low pass filter and therefore a reliable average temperature.)
Based on a comparison with our nearest neighbor, I don’t think the standard 33° C greenhouse effect is a slam dunk. I do think that neither side understands the science nearly as well as they think they do. (Let me hasten to add that I don’t understand it either, I’m just expressing my skepticism about the current state of the science.)

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James Rollins Jr
April 8, 2014 10:45 am

[ http://www.amazon.com/Slaying-Sky-Dragon-Greenhouse-Theory-ebook/dp/B004DNWJN6 ]
I looked, and I don’t see any association of the Slaying the Sky Dragon book with the author of the post, who is being falsely asserted to be associated with it.
I see Tim Ball and Alan Siddon’s names associated with the book – and they’re some of the most respected people in Climate debate, having been responsible for several prominent global warmers’ decided undoings.
Kiehl-Trenberth isn’t a scientific document and is fatally flawed from several directions: no mention anywhere of the mandatory 324 W/sq/meter up inherent to all consensus climate belief is first.
This omission alone means it isn’t legitimate scientific dialog, nor is it real documentation of science.
No matter how many scientifically failed, richly, and thoroughly humiliated wannabes, point to it as the flag they prefer to be laughed out of history’s serious scientific discussions flying.

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James Rollins Jr
April 8, 2014 11:00 am

The people who brought you the Kiehl-Trenberth fiasco are also the ones who brought you an era of modeling the climate not having the atmosphere’s energy handling conform to ideal gas law,
modeling the climate as an ”infrared warming model” instead of an ”infrared cooling model,”
setting the all time low for standards in professional character assassination in place of legitimate scientific inquiry quantified by instrumental verification of hopes,
being found systematically squeezing media coverage such that it consistently resounded that
“the basic science is sound.”
If the basic science was sound it wouldn’t have left out 324 critical W/sq/m.

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Willis Eschenbach
Editor
April 8, 2014 11:08 am

dbstealey says:
April 8, 2014 at 10:30 am

Duster says:

… the inward or down-welling LIR is never 50% of the reradiated IR…

That has been my understanding for a long time now. Greenhouse gases radiate in all directions, therefore a CO2 molecule at, for example, a 20 km altitude would re-radiate an IR photon that it absorbed from the surface in all directions, therefore far less than 50% of the re-radiated photons would return to heat the earth. Most would proceed into outer space. It is only at the surface that a photon has a 50% chance of warming the planet. The rest of the photons radiate into space, cooling the planet.
That is just one of several arguments falsifying the greenhouse gas conjecture.

While this effect surely exists, you are greatly exaggerating the effects. The world is a huge place. The dip of the horizon in radians is sqrt(2h/r) where h is the height of the eye and r is the radius of the earth. At a height of 20 km, the extreme case, this is a dip of 4.5°. In other words, at that altitude the horizon is at 4.5° below true horizontal.
Of course, at lower altitudes this is less and less. What is called the “effective radiation level”, the average height of emission, is only a couple of kilometres above the surface … and at that altitude the dip of the horizon is only 1.4° …
Finally, most of the radiation doesn’t have the binary option of hitting the planet or escaping to outer space. Most of the radiation is reabsorbed by the atmosphere, whether at a higher or a lower level. As a result, much of the time the angle of the planet/space horizon doesn’t even enter into the equation.
So as I said, while you are correct, it is a difference that doesn’t make much of a difference. At average radiation height it’s less than two degrees, and most radiation will be reabsorbed by the atmosphere rather than going to either the planet or to space … so in most analyses it is (properly in my opinion) neglected as a third order effect.
w.

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AlecM
April 8, 2014 11:09 am

Sorry, but you cannot offset SW input with LW output. The two are completely separate. The reality is 168 SW input is thermalised at the surface. Part goes out as convection and evapo-transpiration and part as net IR.
The net IR is 390 – 324 = 66 of which 26 is absorbed by non self-absorbed GHG bands and 40 goes directly to Space via the atmospheric window. The ‘324 back radiation’ and 390 ‘surface emission’ are Radiation Fields; only the vector sum can do thermodynamic work.
Only the 168 heats the atmosphere. The IPCC models are fake because they assume ~3 times this is absorbed in the lower atmosphere and of this about half is offset by a cooling of the upper atmosphere via the ‘two stream approximation’ from assuming Kirchhoff’s Law of Radiation applies at ToA. The latter is impossible for a semi-transparent emitter/absorber.
The net ~40% increase in energy, a perpetual motion machine of the 2nd kind is absorbed by increasing the imaginary part of the 3x GHE from wrongly assuming it is ‘lapse rate’, hence the imaginary ‘positive feedback’. The final cheat is to offset the residual excess by using ~2x low level cloud optical depth in hind-casting, about 25% extra albedo.
This is a clever fraud.

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HenryP
April 8, 2014 11:11 am

James Rollins says
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/08/correcting-trenberth-et-al/#comment-1608409
Henry says
Agreed.
I miss any measurements / results/ etc in this post
OTOH the figures from K/T were also never explained properly
Wilde
it is good to see that you are still thinking about things
Unfortunately, there is just too much that was never explained
e.g.
Trenberth gives a figure for back radiation by ozone
but he simply forgot about the peroxides and the nitrogenous oxides
I am disturbed to see Anthony standing on the side of those laughing not giving any reasoned opinion himself.
This subject is not my specialty,
but I would still caution those laughing to understand why we are globally cooling
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2013/04/29/the-climate-is-changing/

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Willis Eschenbach
Editor
April 8, 2014 11:18 am

commieBob says:
April 8, 2014 at 10:43 am

None of the numbers in the diagram are direct measurements. They are all based on calculations. The budget, as illustrated, is a hypotheses.

Oh, not true in the slightest. The origin of each of the numbers is different. Their basis is described in the underlying document, Earth’s Global Energy Budget. People commenting without having read that are just guessing …
w.

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Bart
April 8, 2014 11:37 am

I disagree with Stephen’s analysis, but I don’t see the snarky comments, without any attempt to bring clarity to the issue, as being particularly helpful, or reflecting any particular understanding from those who make them.
Nylo April 8, 2014 at 4:50 am hits the flaw that I see, though I think there is a nuance which he has not pointed out. Photon emission can increase, as well as decrease, the translational kinetic energy of radiating atmospheric particles, so the net change in translational energy amongst all those particles returning to the surface should be effectively nil. However, they now have unexcited degrees of freedom which will then get filled, due to equipartition, resulting in a net cooling effect.
The problem with Trenberth’s diagram, as with so many of the half-baked analyses relating to this problem, is that it is static. If you increase the “back-radiation”, there is no opposite reaction from Thermals and Evapo-transpiration, or from Clouds.
The casual GHE effect is explained in purely radiative terms. However, convection provides another path for heat to flow to radiating elements in the upper atmosphere, which can short circuit the radiative transfer effect. That convection increases with increasing temperature, too, providing a negative feedback.
I have previously made analogy to an automobile’s cooling system. The radiator actually blocks air flow and radiative transfer from the engine. If you look at the radiation alone, you would conclude that the radiator actually heats the engine above what it would otherwise be.
However, that misses completely the overwhelming advection of coolant from the engine to the fins of the radiator, which cools the engine.
The so-called GHGs in the atmosphere are radiators. They are the major cooling outlets for the atmosphere. If you pipe heat to them, in whatever form, they will eliminate it to space. They are like the fins of the radiator in an automobile. If you add to them, it is like making the fins of the automobile radiator larger.
Yes, they will block more direct radiation from the engine. But, they will more efficiently eliminate heat transferred to them by other means. The net effect can easily be zero. And that, indeed, is that the data are telling us. There is no discernible surface temperature sensitivity to rising CO2. The global temperature record shows a steady rise since the LIA, established well before rising CO2 could have had an effect, overlaid with a ~60 year cyclical component. There is no identifiable secular component which correlates to atmospheric CO2 concentration.

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AlecM
April 8, 2014 11:38 am

The Energy Budget mixes up Radiation Fields with real energy fluxes so it all goes horribly wrong. They then invoke Kirchhoff’s Law of Radiation at ToA and imaginary extra cloud albedo as a fitting parameter.
There is no ‘back radiation, no ‘positive feedback’. The real GHE is 1/3 rd the claimed 33 K; you get this by calculating the mean surface temperature for 341 W/m^ SW energy input (no clouds or ice in the GHG-free hypothetical atmosphere). It’s between 4 and 5 deg C.
At the last glacial maximum the GHE was ~2 K. It is now ~11 K. The difference is entirely from lower cloud albedo via biofeedback (more aerosols – Sagan got the aerosol optical physics wrong so reverse the sign of the AIE).
CO2-AGW is near zero through an atmospheric control mechanism involving a bit of simple new physics, now being proved experimentally !
It’s time this appalling waste of money was shut down and research re-started under professional physicists from good schools so Atmospheric Physics and the Climate stuff can be purged of imaginary ‘back radiation’. Include engineers who do experiments.

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SkepticGoneWild
April 8, 2014 11:41 am

Wow! 342 w/m-2 incoming solar radiation gets magnified to 492 w/m-2 at the surface. That’s a cool thermodynamic trick!

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Alan McIntire
April 8, 2014 11:46 am

“The 78 Wm2 needs to be corrected to zero because the moist adiabatic lapse rate during ascent is less than the dry lapse rate on adiabatic descent which ensures that after the first convective cycle there is as much energy back at the surface as before Evapo-transpiration began.”
If evapo-transpiraton didn’t have any cooling effect, that would make a dog’s panting and our human evaporation system pointless and an evolutionary waste of energy.

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Climate Politics Opinion

Claim: A US Takeover of Greenland Would Deny Access to Climate Scientists

3 days ago
Eric Worrall